To My Toxic Half Who Almost Broke Me

I chose you. That’s on me. But I didn’t know falling in love with you would mean falling out of love with myself. I didn’t know choosing you would mean I would stop choosing me – and before I knew it, my mood and happiness became entirely dependent on you.

I wanted this to work more than anything. I loved you with every fiber of my being. Everyone told me to be careful, I didn’t listen. I fell in love. One moment we were looking at each other and before I knew what was happening it happened all at once. I crashed into you fully and never looked back.

You fell for me, too. You can’t fake those touches, those kisses that make your heart melt, that intense eye contact that sends chills up your spine, all the senses coming to life, walls coming down. But some part of me knew you weren’t ready.

Some part of me knew you were using me.

When you realized that I wasn’t easy – as in, I wouldn’t just go with the flow – that I would confront and challenge you, that’s when you stopped choosing me. When I stopped being convenient, that’s when you stopped loving me. You don’t know how to love.

Your abuse manifested in a lot of ways. I started to question myself. My confident, feisty nature, full of fire, slowly gave way to an insecurity. A rage-fueled invective, manifesting as a reaction to your toxic behavior. I was so insecure and angry because you made me that way. You broke the person who loved you the most in this world.

I felt you slowly stop choosing me. All those times you lied to me. Went behind my back. Contacted girls for validation when you knew how much it hurt me. All those times you cursed at me. All the those times you didn’t care. Didn’t reply. Turned off your phone. Left me hanging. Abandoned me.

You turned everything black in your path, including me.

I started to question my worth. “Am I too damaged, too “crazy,” too emotional? Did I really wear something too slutty?” I did something I swear to never do again, I fell out of love with myself.

But I know our relationship changed you. Like an emotional vampire, you sucked my love dry. I actually loved all your wrongness, all those parts of you that you hate. I wiped your tears when you spoke about your dad, I kissed your edges, I loved all your roughness. Those parts of yourself that you only show to me, I adored them – my love warmed them, your imperfections, it changed you. But it couldn’t change the core of you. I loved your imperfections but you didn’t love mine.

You broke me a little more each day. Stab wounds to the heart. I didn’t deserve any of this. I didn’t deserve your compulsive need to put me down and control me. I didn’t deserve the lies. The manipulation. I took you back so many times because I believe in people, and simply, I loved you too much.

But I can’t spend any more time damaging myself waiting for you to be whole. And I won’t let you manipulate this, you’re so good at it. You are responsible for your actions. I got so sucked in that in time the toxicity felt like a norm. And I let you treat me like that. That’s on me.

On the days when I felt so confident, so beautiful, so good about myself – you could completely shatter it in a second.

I will never choose a toxic person again. No one has that power over me.

I will never let you abuse me again, sucking my love dry.

You got what you wanted from me, and now you’re running from the past – from your actions, from your lies. But the past has a funny way of catching up to us. It will break you the way you broke me.

I hate how long it takes me to trust someone. I don’t want anyone’s sympathy; I don’t want these labels: The one with abandonment issues. The one who keeps you at a distance. The one looking to fill a void. The one with the trust issues. Because this is only a part of me; but the part that I need to fight every time someone tries to get close to me nevertheless.

But I don’t regret any of it. You didn’t choose me because I was too damaged, too difficult – it’s because you were broken. And there’s nothing I could have done differently except to say bye, and give my love to someone who is worthy of it.